In distributed switching systems, switching entities such as Network Processing Units (“NPUs”) independently perform information forwarding, forwarding entry learning, and aging out of forwarding entries. Aging out of forwarding entries requires complex hardware circuitry because switches such as metro Ethernet switches may be associated with a very large number of Virtual Local Area Networks (“VLANs”), and each VLAN may have its own aging timer set by the operator. A VLAN may span any number of switching units and aging may need to be performed uniformly across NPUs within the same VLAN. Aging timer mechanisms in hardware can be very complex in distributed switch systems, meaning that many switching systems offer constrained aging functionality.